A MAN driving into Edinburgh with his daughter yesterday was threatened by another motorist brandishing an axe.

The road rage attacker rounded on the man as they sat in their car at traffic lights.

Earlier in rush-hour traffic the attacker, driving a red Ford Mondeo, had swerved in front of the 48-year-old insurance worker, who had responded with a rude gesture. The driver of the Mondeo shouted and gesticulated back at the man before driving off in another direction.

But close to the city centre the attacker caught up with the man and his 23-year-old daughter at traffic lights. He got out of his car, walked to the door and tapped on the window. He asked the man if he had “given him the finger” and when the man admitted that he had, the attacker told him to get out of the car. When he refused, the attacker went back to his car and returned, waving an axe.

The father and daughter, in a Laguna, managed to escape when the lights turned green and the traffic in front began to move.

The man, from Cumbernauld, who did not want to be named, said: “He asked if I was the guy who had given him the finger and I admitted I was, but said I had done it with due cause. He asked me to get out of the car but I refused so he walked back to his car and I saw him get the axe out of the driver’s side and walk back to my car, hiding the axe at the side of his leg. He again asked me to get out.

“There were cars behind and in front. I thought he was going to put it through the window. What worried me most was the calm way he asked me to get out of the car while trying to hide the axe.”

His daughter said: “We drive that route every day. You don’t expect that kind of thing to happen. How anyone could portray themselves to be that calm and actually be threatening you with violence is unbelievable.”

Police described the attacker as being in his mid-40s, chubby, of medium height, with brown, greying curly hair and a Scottish accent.

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